flash fiction, poetry, and any other writcan go into the weekly lit dot catHe had planned today's outfitIn case he needed a hat

The Lit.cat is an online literary magazine that keeps each issue within a single, scrollable page at a reading length under half an hour. This week's issue features a pelican on fire, $1500 in cash, and your gurgling gut. It also features 3 likes, a fat baritone voiced man, and Benjamin Franklin dressed as a slave. It will take around 28 minutes and 35 seconds to read in its entirety, which is the amount of time it will take for you to realize that he's not just late, he's stood you up, why do you let men do this to you?

I like to imagine that writers dread receiving emails about how their work has changed the sender's life in some meaningful way. I'll try to be blunt.

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I've been a fan of your Twitter account since 2009, when I was young, impressionable, and in high school. There, I would often post your tweets as my own on Facebook for social validation because I was the type of teenager who never really figured out how social validation worked.

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Your tweets had moderate success. It would be like - bam- 3 likes, two from people that you barely acknowledge in the halls, one from someone from your Algebra class, and one noticeably missing from your crush- the one who you would be willing to steal another writer's work for.

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Here's the thing. If you do this enough, your crush will eventually notice. And if you do this enough,you eventually start developing your own writing tastes, so you no longer need to copy and paste other writers' work. But that writing had to develop in a way consistent with the work that people have already seen. So I developed my own writing taste over years based around your Twitter stories.

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I am not a writer anymore, but I am an editor for a weekly online literary zine called Lit.cat. Each issue is limited to 30 minutes of reading. Its specialty is short writing under 2000 words, especially stories under 140 characters that create complex and humorous situations like yours. I, as a thief, would like to ask to steal from you once again. I am creating an issue dedicated to my influences from high school.

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Your thief,

Lit.cat

re: From a fan from the beginning, and a request.

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Lit.cat,

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OK. Normally I don't give permission to thieves but I will in this instance.

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Use my tweet. Go for it. But you have to preface it with your own story. That's my condition. And then we'll see.

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Thanks.

Arjun

Lit.cat

September 24th, 2009

He sets his desk on fire. Or at least he tries to. But the desk never lights. You see now how right I was to call you useless, his boss says.

3 people like this.

By Arjun Basu

Editors note: The Egg is a short story that I've encountered numerous times on the internet, and for good reason- it serves as a perfect myth to capture our moral sensibilities and modern imaginations. I first saw it on 4chan's /b/ board while I was in high school and immediately emailed it to myself. The author has since written The Martian; both the book and its movie adaptation I highly adore.